


Reconciliation

by birds96



Category: Degrassi, Degrassi the Next Generation
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 01:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4459553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birds96/pseuds/birds96
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles opens up to Maya about his relationship with Tristan, his father, and the events of 14A. After learning the truth about what Miles had gone through, she encourages him to attempt to reconcile with Tristan. Eventual Miles/Tristan?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Maya

**Author's Note:**

> The Miles Hollingsworth drought of 14B is killing me

Maya stared at her phone, failing to comprehend the words in front of her. 

From: Miles Hollingsworth  
Message: ‘Hey, want to come over and talk?’ 

This was the first time Maya had heard from Miles since the fire, aside from a few hellos in the hallway at school. The message was so out of the blue that her initial reaction was panicked concern. Was Miles okay? Why on earth would he want to see her on a Monday night? 

She impulsively hit the ‘call’ button and nervously tapped her fingers on the kitchen counter while she waited for Miles to answer. Her anxiety had improved significantly with therapy, but she couldn’t help but have flashbacks of Miles from the month prior, when he was constantly distressed and self-destructive. 

“Do you not text anymore?” She heard him say only a few seconds later. He sounded confused, but otherwise calm, which eased her worries a little. 

“I- No, I’m just doing homework so I thought it would be easier to call.” She lied. The homework part was true, but she wasn’t going to admit that she really just called to make sure Miles wasn’t in the middle of a meltdown. “What’s up? What did you want to talk about?” 

“I’d prefer to talk about it in person.” 

Maya bit her lip. “You know I’m dating Zig, right?” 

He laughed. “I’m not trying to lure you over here to seduce you, Maya. I just figured you deserve an explanation for… well, why I went completely crazy for a while.” 

“Oh.” Maya said, surprised. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t that. 

“So, are you coming over?” 

“Yeah, I’ll be over soon.” 

“Great. See you then, Maya.” 

\-----

Despite having been there many times, the Hollingsworth household never failed to amaze Maya. It was so hard to believe that people actually lived in a mansion so extravagant. 

Miles opened the front door before she even had a chance to knock. 

“Hey. Thanks for coming.” He had a small smile on his face. Frankly, he seemed much less distant than he had been a month ago. He wasn’t skipping school anymore and he was staying out of trouble. Maya was happy for him. 

“Yeah, no problem.” Maya stepped into the house. Miles led her onto the back porch to the set of table and chairs that overlooked the pool.

Miles gestured for Maya to sit down and closed the sliding glass doors behind them. “Sorry this is kind of sudden and weird, but I’ve just been thinking about everything that happened, and I think I’m just finally ready to talk about it, y’know?”

Maya shook her head. “No, this isn’t weird.” It was kind of weird. “I’m always here to talk.” 

Miles smiled and sat down. He put his feet up on another chair- his usual rebellious sitting position. It drove his mother crazy. 

If Miles was honest, Maya was the only person he thought would take him seriously, aside from his family. He’d practically disowned Winston when he cheated on Frankie, Tristan wanted nothing to do with him, and in his self-destructive downward spiral he’d managed to push away the rest of his friends, too. Despite everything that happened, Maya was the only one who stuck with him and genuinely wanted to help. At the time he wasn’t willing to accept the help, but looking back on it, he really appreciated her attempts to get through to him. 

Maya watched Miles from across the table. He was staring at the water in the pool, seemingly deep in thought. 

He sighed. “My dad finished moving out today.” He met Maya’s eyes and made an expression that she couldn’t quite decipher. “I mean, he left last month, but his stuff is all gone now.”

“Have your parents… are they divorced?” 

“Not officially, but they will be, once all the paperwork is done.” 

“How does it feel?” 

Miles shrugged. “That’s the thing: I thought I was going to be happy. I thought it was going to fix everything and I would instantly feel better. But that’s just not how I feel.”

Maya didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t relate to what Miles had gone through, especially since she didn’t know all the details of the situation. 

“I just lost… everything.” He said after a period of silence. “I pushed my best friend away, I pushed Tristan away, I called you crazy- I’m so sorry for that.” 

Maya shook her head. “No, I understand why you did it. Miles, it wasn’t your fault.” He nodded, but she had a feeling he didn’t forgive himself for it. 

“I know Tristan blames you for us breaking up.” He said quietly.

“He thinks you still had a thing for me.”

“I thought I did too, for a while.” 

Maya looked at him, surprised. “What do you mean?”

He shook his head and went to speak, then seemed to change his mind. He was having trouble getting all of his thoughts into words and finding a place to begin. “Maya, my dad was abusing me. Physically and verbally, and the longer it went on, the worse I felt. Mentally, I was in an awful place.” 

She stared.

“So after a while I started thinking about you. At the time I thought it was because I still had feelings for you, but after really thinking about it these past few weeks, and well, talking to my therapist about it, I think I just wanted to go back to the time in my life when we were together. I was happier then, and less aware of how awful my dad was. So I guess subconsciously I thought that if we got back together, my life would go back to like it was back then.”

Maya nodded, but was having trouble processing all the information being thrown at her. She settled on asking a question to keep Miles talking. “You’re going to therapy now?” 

He nodded. “I am suffering from depression that manifests itself in major depressive episodes, or something like that.” 

Maya was surprised at how easy it was for him to reveal this information. He never used to be so open about things like that.

“Some days I can’t get myself out of bed. I take medication but it’s heavily monitored due to my ‘addictive personality.’” 

“Miles… you don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to.”

He shook his head. “I want to. I invited you over to talk. Besides, keeping things to myself is what got me in this mess. I’m making a conscious effort to be more honest.” 

A small smile danced across Maya’s face. After everything Miles had gone through, she was glad to see that at least something good came out of it. 

“Anyway, it’s gotten better. When I have really bad days Frankie and Hunter will come and lay with me just to keep me company. I pretend I’m annoyed by it but it’s really sweet.” 

Maya rested her chin in her hand and smiled to herself. She could never know how bad it truly was for Miles to live in such an abusive environment, but she saw the affect it had had on him. It was clear that his dad leaving had helped a lot. A few weeks ago, there would have been no way Miles would have opened up to her like this. 

“Are you going to talk or just smile at me?” Miles asked, chuckling when he turned to find Maya smiling and staring at him.

She laughed and sat up in her seat. “I’m just so happy you’re out of that environment.” 

“Me too.”

Maya smiled and looked out at the pool. The pool was illuminated, making the water a bright, clear blue. 

A comfortable silence passed before Maya spoke again. “Miles, you know you didn’t deserve what he did to you, right?” 

Miles was tapping his fingers against his leg, a nervous habit that Maya shared. Some time passed before he responded: “I like to think I know that what he did wasn’t my fault, but deep down I still think it is. My therapist said that’s normal, and that it takes a while to come to terms with abuse and whatnot, but I’m just not there yet. Not-“ he made a strange hand gesture in an attempt to explain his jumbled thoughts. “I’m just not there yet. I did bad stuff and it still makes me feel like I deserved what he did to me.” 

“Bad stuff?” 

“Treating Tristan like garbage, treating you like garbage, prioritizing weed over our safety, the list goes on.”

“Are you going to tell Tris about what happened?” 

“He hates me.” 

“He won’t if he knew about what happened! Right now he just thinks that you were using him to get back to me.” 

Miles frowned and stared at the pool yet again. 

“You really liked him, didn’t you?”

He nodded and exhaled a shaky breath. “I told him he was pathetic. I wish I could take it all back.”

“You can, Miles! Just talk to him.” 

Miles sighed, and Maya felt that topic suddenly become off-limits. Maya slumped back into her chair. She wanted to help him reconcile with Tristan, but she couldn’t just do it for him. Besides, she was trying to stay out of other peoples’ business. 

“Miles?”

“Hm?”

“We sucked as a couple.” She smiled, hoping to get a reaction from him.

He laughed. “Yeah, we did.”

“But I’m glad we’re friends.” 

Miles smiled to himself. “Me too.” 

They spent a couple hours getting caught up with each other and sitting in a comfortable silence. Miles didn't drive Maya home until after midnight. In the back of her mind she was slowly forming a plan to get Miles to talk to Tristan. He might not have thought that Tristan would forgive him, but Maya knew he would. Tristan liked to think he was able to keep a grudge, but he could be easily changed with one emotional conversation, and Maya intended to make it happen.


	2. Tristan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miles and Tristan are tricked by Maya into speaking to each other.

“I don’t have anything to say to that jerk.” 

“Come on Tris, it’s been a month and you’ve spoken to him what, twice?” 

“Two times too many.” Tristan slammed his locker shut and turned to walk away from Maya. 

Maya groaned and followed him. She’d spent all day subtly attempting to get Tristan to consider the idea of talking to Miles, but he wasn’t having any of it. She couldn’t entirely blame him; from his perspective Miles was just a bad boy jerk who had used him. He didn’t know the extent of Miles’ family issues. Hell, he probably didn’t even know that Miles’ parents were divorcing.

“Why are you suddenly so obsessed with me talking to Miles anyway?” Tristan asked, examining his hand- something he did when he wanted to appear uninterested. 

“No reason.” She replied, perhaps a little too quickly. “I guess it’s just almost the end of the year and I think it’d be dumb for you guys to not talk about it while you have a chance.”

“There’s nothing to talk about, Maya. He used me, we broke up, and I’m sure he’s off crushing on someone new now. I pray for the poor soul who is currently Miles Hollingsworth’s object of affection.” 

Maya rolled her eyes. She loved Tristan, but he was practically impossible to reason with sometimes. 

“Anyway,” Tristan continued once the pair had reached the line for the cell phone truck. “Are we still hanging out at your casa later?”

“Yeah, five thirty.” She replied distractedly. Her initial plan to just hint at Tristan to talk to Miles had completely fallen through, so now she needed a plan B. An idea didn’t come to her until Grace handed her cell phone to her. 

“Actually Tris, can we meet at the Dot instead? I forgot that my mom is having one of her friends over.” 

Tristan seemed unaffected by the change in plans. He was still probably bitter about the whole Miles conversation. “Yeah, sounds good to me.” 

“Great, see you then.” With that, they parted ways and Maya opened her conversation with Miles.

To: Miles Hollingsworth  
Message: ‘hey if you’re feeling up to it, do you want to meet at the dot at 5:30?? i need some coffee since you kept me up all night lol’ 

A reply came a few minutes later: 

From: Miles Hollingsworth  
Message: ‘You know I’m dating my bed, right?’ 

Then another:

From: Miles Hollingsworth  
Message: ‘That was a bad joke. I’ll be there.’ 

Maya rolled her eyes. She was friends with a bunch of nerds. 

\------------ 

Miles had planned on napping that Tuesday afternoon away, but his plans were quickly changed when Maya texted. Truth be told, it was hard to will himself out of bed when five o’clock actually rolled around, but it was probably a good thing that he got some fresh air. Besides, his mother would be glad to find out that he was actually hanging out with a friend rather than just lying around and sleeping. 

When he walked into the Dot there were only a few people seated in the back, focusing on their laptops. No sign of Maya yet. His watch read 5:23, so he ordered a coffee for himself and took a seat at a table. 

He passed time scrolling through his phone. It wasn’t long before he heard the door open and looked up to find a familiar face.

Although it wasn’t the familiar face he was expecting to see. 

“What are you doing here?” Tristan asked immediately. Miles winced. He would have preferred that Tristan had just ignored him.

“I’m waiting for Maya.” Miles said simply. Ordinarily he’d respond sarcastically, but Tristan caught him off guard. 

Tristan made a confused face. “I don’t believe you.” 

Miles looked around in confusion. He could not catch a break for the life of him. “What are you talking about? Why would I be lying about that?” 

“Well forgive me if I don’t think you’re the most honest of people.” Tristan said, crossing his arms. “I was supposed to meet Maya here. Did she put you up to this or something?” 

Miles stared at Tristan and sunk into his chair a bit when he realized what was happening. “Maya set us up. She wanted me to talk to you.”

“She wanted me to talk to you.” Tristan said in an accusing tone. “Wait. What do you mean she wanted you to talk to me? Since when are you guys talking?” 

“Since last night.” 

“I cannot believe her.” Tristan said, looking everywhere but at Miles. An awkward silence fell between the two of them. 

Miles shook his head. He couldn’t believe this was happening. Maya was going to receive an angry phone call later that night. 

“Do you… want to talk?” Miles asked eventually. Tristan stared down at the table for a moment before sighing and pulling a chair out across from Miles and sitting down. Miles wasn’t prepared for this conversation, but he figured this was as ready as he was ever going to be. 

“Well?” Tristan asked, staring down at his hands as if they were the most interesting things in the world. 

Miles exhaled nervously. “Where do you want me to start?” 

“Did you ever really like me?” Tristan asked the question so quickly that it seemed as if he already had an arsenal of questions prepared for this exact moment. 

“Yes. Our relationship wasn’t just some stunt.” 

Tristan was quiet for a moment. “Did you still have feelings for Maya?” 

“I thought I did.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

Miles was having flashbacks to the previous night when he had this exact conversation with Maya. He sighed. “I thought I still liked her, but I just thought that if I somehow got back together with her my life would improve.”

“Oh so I just ruined your life?” Tristan said melodramatically. 

“No, Tris. It didn’t have anything to do with you, it was my dad.” 

“What, your homophobic dad made you want to go back to girls?” 

Miles groaned in frustration and took a sip of coffee. 

“I just don’t understand why your dad would make you want Maya again. I know he was mean but-“

“He was abusing me Tristan!” Miles said a little too loudly. A few heads turned toward their table at the outburst. Tristan stared in horror. 

Miles was angry and embarrassed but the words continued to spill out of him: “He was hitting me. He threw me against a wall, threw things at me, hit me when no one was around. He was verbally abusive. He was cheating on my mom. Not to mention he was planning on blaming the whole Oomfchat scandal on Frankie when she didn’t do it!” 

“Miles-“

“That’s why I was smoking. That’s why I thought I liked Maya, because back when I was with Maya I didn’t know my dad was like that. I didn’t like Maya; I just liked the idea of going back to the way my life was in grade nine when everything was somewhat better. I liked you Tristan, I liked you a lot and I still do, but my father was literally pushing me to a mental breakdown and I didn’t know what to do and I pushed you away.” 

Miles was on the verge of tears. He wasn’t sure if it was anger or frustration or what, but he couldn’t get a grip. His therapist had once told him that his abuse would mean that sometimes his emotions sometimes wouldn’t make sense and were seemingly uncontrollable, and he was pretty sure this was what they were talking about. 

“I’m so sorry.” Tristan said quietly. He felt incredibly embarrassed that he was the one who had been angry. 

“No, I’m sorry.” Miles said. He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. “I should have been honest to you from the start. I just didn’t know how, so I pushed everyone away.” 

Tristan grabbed Miles’ hand and squeezed it in an attempt to calm him down. “It wasn’t your fault; I shouldn’t have just assumed I knew what was going on.” 

Miles took a deep, shuddery breath and looked out the window. He had to admit it felt good getting everything off his chest, but he was simultaneously making himself feel like shit because he was reminded of the awful way he’d treated Tristan. 

“My dad’s gone now. My parents are getting divorced.” Miles said, still staring out at the street. He had to work hard to keep his voice steady. 

“Are you okay?” 

Miles nodded without looking back at Tristan. “I’m working on being okay. I go to therapy twice a week. I take meds.” 

Tristan never expected that by the end of that conversation he would be the one who felt like trash. He felt awful, both because he’d made such awful assumptions about Miles and because he was being rude to Maya all day about bringing up talking to Miles. He’d have to apologize to her later. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.” 

“You were.” Miles replied. He looked down at his hand in Tristan’s as if he just noticed it. “You were one of the only people who cared about me for a while. But things just got so bad that I started projecting my anger on everyone around me. Tris, I’m not faultless here. Even if I was going through shit, I still treated you like trash. I called you pathetic.” He looked up to meet Tristan’s eye, his face painted with apology. 

“I called you my share of awful names.” Tristan replied. 

Miles nodded. A silence fell between them. 

A few minutes passed before Tristan spoke again. “So. You still like me?” He smiled. 

Miles laughed. His smile looked like the most beautiful thing in the world to Tristan. “Yeah, Tris.” He squeezed Tristan’s hand. “It sucks that we dated when we did. I feel like we never got a real chance.”

“Well, maybe… if we tried a second time it might turn out better?” 

Miles stared at the boy across from him. “You want to try again?” 

Tristan shrugged dramatically. “Well you and Maya dated what, three separate times? I think we deserve a second try.”

Miles smiled, his heart fluttering. “Yeah, that sounds fair.” 

“So fair.” Tristan agreed. They both laughed happily. 

Later that night Miles called Maya and thanked her.


End file.
